Olympiacos, Lazaros Papadopoulos will miss six weeks of action

Days after making the Top 16 with its biggest win of the season, Olympiacos announced that starting center Lazaros Papadopoulos will be sidelined until at least after the start of the Top 16 next month. Papadopoulos, 31, underwent left knee surgery on Sunday, three days after he scored 12 points, his season high, in an 86-61 blowout victory over Bennet Cantu that put Olympiacos in the Top 16. Olympiacos said that player and club elected together to have his operation now so that Papadopoulos might return to top form this season, his first with the Reds. In eight Euroleague games so far, Papadopoulos was averaging 6 points, 4.4 rebounds and 3.1 assists, the most by a center in the competition. Papadopoulos is one of the few players who has been both a Euroleague champion, with Panathinaikos in 2002, and a Eurocup champion, with Dynamo Moscow in 2006.